Real Estate Investing With Jay Conner
In this episode of Real Estate Investing with Jay Conner, Jay’s special guest is the founder of InvestorPO, Property List Manager, and USA Portfolio Real Estate and a Visionary for https://www.RealEstateInvestor.com, Robert Syfert.
Robert shares with everyone how he creates software, tools, and services that enable real estate investors to do things better and faster.
He’s passionate about being part of the solution and finding answers to the problems that hold real estate investors back from growing and scaling their businesses.
He has sold and managed hundreds of investment properties with well over a decade of experience in the industry and has built three successful startups from the ground up.
Robert’s a family man who believes that every real estate investor can achieve success and financial security in this industry—without compromising their free time… They just need the right tools to get there.
Robert is a highly sought-out speaker in both real estate investing and software solutions. He’s a philanthropist, and he gives back to the industry through his mentorship program and business coaching services.
Robert believes in sharing his success with others through teamwork.
Timestamps:
0:01 – Get Ready To Be Plugged Into The Money
1:53 – Jay’s New Book: “Where To Get The Money Now”- https://www.JayConner.com/Book
2:40 – Today’s guest: Robert Syfert
6:02 – Robert Syfert & the Real Estate Business
9:55 – Robert’s early struggles and lessons learned in the real estate business
13:35 – Act immediately in the face of your fears.
16:05 – Connect with Robert Syfert – https://www.RealEstateInvestor.com
16:36 – Best book to recommend in setting a great mindset
17:20 – Robert talks about how he creates software, tools, and services that enable real estate investors to do things better and faster.
21:32 – Robert’s automation software is user friendly
25:35 – https://realestateinvestor.com/Robert-Gifts/
28:30 – Robert Syfert’s parting comments: “Do the things that come immediately into your mind that you are afraid to do.”
Private Money Academy Conference:
https://jaysliveevent.com/live/?oprid=&ref=42135
Have you read Jay’s new book: Where to Get The Money Now? It is available FREE (all you pay is the shipping and handling) at https://www.JayConner.com/Book
Free Webinar: http://bit.ly/jaymoneypodcast
Jay Conner is a proven real estate investment leader. Without using his own money or credit, Jay maximizes creative methods to buy and sell properties with profits averaging $64,000 per deal.
What is Real Estate Investing? Live Private Money Academy Conference
YouTube Channel
https://www.youtube.com/c/RealEstateInvestingWithJayConner
iTunes:
Listen to our Podcast:
Creating Time In Real Estate Through
Automation with Robert Syfert and Jay Conner
Jay Conner (02:38):
My special guest today is a true innovator and creator in the real estate investment industry. One of his big specialties is he actually creates software tools and services that help real estate investors do things better and faster, and who would not want to get things done faster and better and more organized than chasing your tail around all day and trying to keep up with pieces of paper everywhere, right? In addition to that, my special guest is passionate about finding answers to the problems that hold real estate investors back from growing and scaling their business. I mean, are you a real estate investor and you’ve been doing a few deals, but you’d really like to grow it, but you just feel like you’re maxed out all the way and you just don’t have any more time on your hands and you really want to grow your business?
You want to scale it, but you feel like, “Wow, if I just had some more hours in a day, then I could do that.” Well, guess what? My special guest here in just a second is going to show you how to create more hours in a day so you can get things done so much more efficiently. In addition to that, my special guest has managed hundreds of investment properties with well over a decade of experience in the industry. In addition to that, he’s a family man. He believes that every real estate investor can achieve success and financial security in this real estate investing industry without compromising your free time. I mean, after all, why are you interested? Or why did you get into real estate investing? Because you wanted to free up some time, right? The only thing is, you need the right tools in order to achieve and enjoy that. My special guest is also a very, very highly sought-after speaker in both real estate investing and software solutions. With that, a special welcome to my friend and special guest, Mr. Robert Syfert. Hello, Robert!
Robert Syfert (04:50):
Thanks for having me, Jay. And that probably was the best introduction I’ve ever had before.
Jay Conner (04:57):
Well, how many podcasts have you been on?
Robert Syfert (05:03):
I have been on a lot and that’s by far the best intro I’ve ever heard.
Jay Conner (05:07):
At least I was able to tell the truth about you. Well, at least say that, right?
Robert Syfert (05:16):
I appreciate that kindly. And it was all true.
Jay Conner (05:21):
Love it. That was great. Thank you, Robert. We can’t wait to hear about how you’re creating time out of thin air, and how to really put our business on automatic. How does your software really help us run our business instead of our business running us? But before you spill the beans on your expertise on using software and tools that enable us to achieve that as real estate investors, are you ready? You got your seatbelt on?
Robert Syfert (05:50):
I’m always ready. All right.
Jay Conner (05:52):
Awesome. Like my good friend, Miss Bueller Reiner, who lived to be 102 and a half, she used to always say, “Jay I’m sitting on ready,” so here we go. What got you into real estate, Robert?
Robert Syfert (06:05):
Man, this is to give the shortest version of the story. I have wanted to do real estate since I was 18 years old and saw a Russ Whitney commercial about if his family just had another house, how much better life would be. And then I spent well over a decade, not doing real estate, but wishing I could and thought about it and studied it and learned it. So I always wanted to do it, went to a Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminar and just found myself never taking any action. A lot of fears held me back until I finally, probably hit the worst time of my life financially. Had no money, facing eviction, major surgeries for my wife the year before, and so I decided that it was finally time to go all in to real estate and go after my dreams versus worrying about all the fears that I have that led me to where I was in the worst place I could be.
So in short, I got started in real estate because I always wanted to, and then I finally shifted my mindset from being in fear all the time to just taking action and learning from there and moving forward and the rest is history as far as they speak. I’ve never done anything but real estate since that moment.
Jay Conner (07:22):
What year did you start?
Robert Syfert (07:24):
So full-time, that eclipse moment was 2013, I want to say. And a couple of years before that, I was kind of trying to do it part-time and figure it out and never getting anywhere, not getting any deals done. I was studying another thing and let me send out a bandit sign thing and get phone calls, but can’t sell them or make money. And then finally, a mentor of mine in my business actually said, “You know, you’re just trying to chase two things at the same time.” And that was like a light bulb moment that was like, I get it. I think he meant for me to work a hundred percent on the career I was at. But I took it as, “This is why the real estate thing never worked.” I need to quit working everything else and go all in on real estate. Not recommending that to anyone, but that’s what worked for me.
Jay Conner (08:15):
Did you focus on starting out in single-family houses or commercial or what kind of real estate? I mean self-storage, land? I mean, there’s all kinds.
Robert Syfert (08:25):
Yeah, there’s all kinds, I actually learned. That was one of my fears that held me back. At the Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminar, it opened my eyes to 30 different ways you could make money. And I said, “Oh, okay. Now I have to decide.” For me, it was single-family. I always had a passion for the single-family. So I got started in single-family and did not know the terms back then. I started off wholesaling and primarily focused on rental properties.
Jay Conner (08:50):
Gotcha. So what does your organization look like today?
Robert Syfert (08:54):
So, the real estate business itself, the buying and selling of homes, I’ve actually, ironically, built it to a point that I’m currently in the middle of selling that business. And I’ve sold parts of it here and there throughout the years, as I built a software company and services business. So I had built a massive turnkey operation that had property management businesses, rehab divisions. I sold all the property management business a couple of years ago. We currently have, I want to say around 10 to 12 people in the office here in Tampa. We do some rehabs. We do some wholesales, we do some wholetail, we refer out our in-house realtor. But I’m selling that business to my partner and I’ll still continue to do real estate, but more on the lower scale. I have a niece that I’m teaching. She’s learning commercial and driving for dollars and we’ll flip a house here and there just for the fun of it, but that’d be my buying and selling part of what I do.
Jay Conner (09:57):
You sort of touched on it a little bit, but let’s dive down. What were some of your early struggles when you were starting out? And the lessons learned that our viewers and listeners can learn from your early struggles?
Robert Syfert (10:11):
Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway that everyone can have, no matter where you’re at and starting out, is right here. It’s the spot that’s the 6 inches between your ears. And why I say that is that no matter what level you’re at, your mindset is the only thing that’s holding you back from the next place you want to go. So whether that’s your first deal, your 100th deal, your 10,000th deal, your mind is the only thing preventing you from getting there. So face those. Be aware that there are fears that are holding you back, and they’re usually your own self-limiting beliefs. And if you dive into that and spend your time there, generally you’ll find that it’s something in your childhood, your life, or an experience that’s preventing you. At least that’s been my experience. That’s what held me back. And as soon as you’re ready to face that, doors tend to start opening and the things that you need and want will start to progress you.
Now from the business side of it, you answered it right in the beginning of your show, the fear of “Oh, I could find deals, but I’m not going to have any money.” Well, go get Jay’s free book, and there you go, problem solved. I didn’t have that option back then, finding money was a problem. So I wholesaled everything just to make money until I figured out how to do private money. So again, don’t let your mind hold you back on that, but you also have a headstart with his book, to answer that question for you. Some of the other things were, I thought for some reason, I was going to get into real estate and just have all this magical time with my family and there’s so much millions made.
It wouldn’t be hard work. And I found out it was a whole lot of hard work and I worked more hours than I ever did before working for someone else. And so some of those were the hard lessons along the way was figuring out what I didn’t need to do and what I could outsource to other people. I came from the background of “No one could do it better than me, hustle harder” kind of stuff. So I always try to do everything. And you just run into a brick wall. I made a lot of money and I had no time. So then I had to flip that and say, “Okay, I don’t need to do all this stuff.” There’s a lot of simple stuff that a very inexpensive VA could do. There’s stuff that software automates and gets it done for me without my need to know how, and there’s just a bunch of stuff that is keeping me busy, but really doesn’t even need to get done. So, those were a lot of the hard lessons and the things that I would say in the beginning were struggles. Again, it still comes down to your mindset and hire sooner than you think you need to. Even if it’s as simple as a hundred dollar a week VA that just does all your paperwork for you, right? If you hate doing paperwork as an example.
Jay Conner (12:48):
So you just mentioned you’re not doing the rehab yourself, which reminds me, I had a student tell me one time how I preach and teach about “Don’t do your own rehabs, no way you can scale your business like that,” and the student at the event says, “But, Jay, I love rehabbing my own houses. It’s like therapy to me,” and I paused and I thought for a moment. And I say, “Well, I’ll tell you what, anybody that rehabs their own houses, in my opinion, needs therapy!”
Robert Syfert (13:20):
Yeah. I definitely never got caught into rehabbing my own houses. Thankfully, that was the easy one.
Jay Conner (13:30):
Do I look like I know how to swing a hammer? I mean, come on, give me a break. So now you also talked about your mindset’s gotta be right and it’s fear and it’s your mindset that really holds most real estate investors back, even after they’ve been educated about the fear of taking action. If someone’s having problems, which is very common, if someone’s struggling with the fear mindset of being able to move forward, take action, get past the fear, how do you recommend they fix that?
Robert Syfert (14:03):
Yeah, a couple of things. Number one, if you have the wherewithal to do it, hiring a coach by far is the simplest solution, right? Because they’re going to hold you accountable, they’re going to push you to do things, and they’re going to help you even figure out what those things are that you don’t even realize might be your fears. I’ve hired coaches in every area of my life and continue to do so and always will. Beyond that, the first thing, and just giving you a nugget of something that’s come to me more recently regarding this, is facing your fears and realizing what I’ve started to experience recently is when I’m asking questions or I’m wondering or pondering something, the action that I need to take I am noticing is becoming the first thought that I have. Behind that first thought, if you delay and don’t take action on all the reasons why it won’t work, all the fears start creeping in and all the negative language that you’ve had your whole life starts talking to you, right?
So I’m starting to recognize more recently than ever before that if you just act immediately in the face of your fears, you’re already going to start out, and in that, you’re rewiring your brain. So as you do that, it could start as simple as you don’t want to wake up and your alarm clock goes off, but you have a plan based on your alarm clock going off, just not hitting snooze today, is going to make it better for you to do that tomorrow. But if you wait 5 seconds, 6 seconds, you’re going to hit snooze because all the negative chatter comes in and you could get up an hour later, et cetera. But relay that to anything that you’re afraid to do, I can almost almost guarantee that the first thought you have is the positive one that you should do. And it’s the one we avoid doing. So do your best to do that. And whenever you have the opportunity, hire a coach that’s done what you’re trying to do that can help you because they’re going to help eliminate a lot of the fears you have. Because they’re just going to tell you something you’re not saying to yourself. Usually we have a fear of something that we don’t know. So if they know something you don’t, it helps eliminate your fear.
Jay Conner (16:06):
My special guest today, Robert Syfert, has an amazing background. What a journey he has. And if you would like to connect with Robert Syfert, he has got a special website, which is – and who in the world can forget this – www.realestateinvestor.com. I love your website there. Now, Robert, you mentioned just a moment ago, we’re talking about mindset, which book in the subject of mindset and getting your head on straight have you gifted more than any other book?
Robert Syfert (16:49):
The Magic by Rhonda Byrne, hands down.
She’s the same author of “The Secret,” and I’ve probably given away north of a hundred of those books just because it’s that foundational to my journey.
Jay Conner (17:16):
Thank you for sharing that. So as I introduced you, Robert, your expertise is software tools and resources that make this thing called real estate investing so much easier to navigate and run and keeps you from running around with your hair on fire all day long. So, first question, how did you get into software development? My guess is you had a problem that needed fixing?
Robert Syfert (17:49):
Well, you’re a very smart wizard. Yeah. I had a problem in scaling my business and it was all over boards and sheets and people, right? And it was just a mess. How are we going to go into 10 more states like this? And so we started looking at software options and there weren’t any that did exactly what we did. So we built it and we solved our own problem. And in solving our problem, we found all these different ways and technology that were out there to automate a whole bunch of stuff we were doing. So we eliminated things, like we had a VA running comps on every deal before a sales person looked at it. We had VAs doing all of the follow-up in between someone saying, “Maybe not now, etc.” And we automated all that.
So I literally saved like $4,000 a month in overhead by shifting it all to software. And it took me over a year to do that and build that and tens of thousands of dollars. And then we walked into a private mastermind in a coaching session, shared one of the pieces we automated and the impact it had on our business in a huge way positively. And the whole room was like, “So I want that. How do we get it?” Like, I built the software for me. I don’t have an answer to that question. And then obviously that turned into all right, I guess I’m going to be in the software business now because there’s a massive need. And I flew out, met some people, hired a mentor and launched the software business several years ago. And it’s been a big thing for us since then.
Jay Conner (19:30):
So, give us an overview. Like you made that presentation to your mastermind group and they were salivating saying, “I want that. I want that.” So give us a 30,000 foot view. What different types of tasks, etc. does this software do for us?
Robert Syfert (19:48):
Yeah. The main thing is keeping you organized, stacking your list, and compiling it all in one place. So it’s clean and simple, so you’re organized first and foremost and you know what to do every day. Then the base core of what made it so sexy back then to everyone is we were the first to start doing tons of automated follow-up and changing it based on where the person was in the pipeline. They just contacted you, their lead you spoke with, you made an offer to write it. So the way the system talked through emails and text messages and voicemails from you or someone on your team and even one-off postcards, thank you cards, etc. were all automatically and precisely timed to just go out of the system. So that in and of itself was the biggest game-changer of the system.
And then it automated like, “Oh, this lead has an appointment.” So it assigns it automatically to the person that runs your appointments or it’s, “We got to go inspect it.” so it automatically assigns it to the person that’s supposed to inspect it so they can go take photos and do their job. “Oh, it’s ready to be under contract,” so it automatically assigns it to the person, you or the person on your team that’s responsible for getting it closed. It makes it super simple with a click of a button to do every single thing that you’re going to do in your business, from marketing to people all the way to closing your deals. And if you’re a wholesaler, even the push button markets it out to all your buyers, while at the same time, the automation is really cool about being able to continue to foster your relationships with your buyers or sellers or private lenders. Your agents may work with your contractors, etc. and it gives one place where everything is centralized. So you don’t have to log into five different systems, go to 10 different whiteboards, etc.
Jay Conner (21:37):
So, let’s say that there’s a real estate investor listening here to the show and they go, “I’m just not tech savvy. I’m not like a computer kind of guy.” So how user-friendly is this for someone that isn’t used to having all that stuff organized?
Robert Syfert (21:56):
Super user-friendly. That was exactly why we designed it the way we did so there is flexibility and customization capability for the tech-friendly guy that wants to go in and play and configure and move stuff around. But we built it so that the day you sign up, there’s everything I just mentioned. It already does all that. You don’t go do anything. It literally just has a blinking light. You click the blinking light, which is pretty obvious, too. It’s a blinking red light so it stands out. And when you click it, you’ll see a big, huge button that says “Call” or “Text”, you call your person. And then there’s a button that asks you, “Did you make an offer?” “Do you need to call them back?” “Did you make an appointment?” You click that simple thing and it’s all on one screen. You’re not changing things. We continue to, by the way, take user feedback with the thousands of members we have and continue to refine it if there’s any way that we can make it even simpler. Can we make it where your 102-year-old grandma comes in ready? And she doesn’t even need to know real estate to know how to use the system.
Jay Conner (23:06):
I got you. So what year did you come out with the software?
Robert Syfert (23:10):
So we built it for ourselves to solve our problem in 2016, late 2015, throughout 2016 when we were really scaling up and I moved. And then January 2017 we went into development, full bore for people. And so late 2017 is when we started taking on actual users once we finished building it.
Jay Conner (23:36):
Well, I know we’ve got folks here that are going to want to learn how to get plugged into this software. Should they just go to your website, www.realestateinvestor.com?
Robert Syfert (23:47):
Yeah, that’s the simple way.
Jay Conner (23:59):
Well, that sounds good. So would you say that this software is like a CRM that is specialized for us real estate investors?
Robert Syfert (24:13):
Yeah, a hundred percent. It is a CRM that was built by tech people but built for my real estate business to operate everything that it did throughout. And so it was built with me in mind specifically. And then as we brought in actual people, besides me, we continued to refine what others did that I didn’t and make it perfect for all real estate investors.
Jay Conner (24:37):
Does it have the capability of, like, when someone responds to marketing depending on if it’s a phone call or whatever they’re calling in or whatever, does your software integrate with say other systems to where it automatically fills in and populates the CRM instead of having a VA manually type in each new contact?
Robert Syfert (25:00):
Yeah. That’s the really cool thing. We have open integrations through API and Zapier for anybody that has some other tool they use for stuff like that, that’ll integrate and pull in. We also have some of what you’re mentioning already built in. So like if you had a marketing list, you can load it in the backend of our prospecting. And then when anyone calls in from any marketing and fills out an online form if you’ve done online marketing, whatever capacity it is, any address or phone number that matches up something on your list, it auto-fills in everything else you had on your list.
Jay Conner (25:33):
That’s beautiful. Wonderful. And also Robert, I believe you’ve got some free gifts to give away or a gift to giveaway. Right.
Robert Syfert (25:42):
I don’t know if I do.
Jay Conner (25:45):
Well, actually you do because your assistant sent it to me and I’m not sure what they are, but I’m sure they’re good. You can access them at www.RealEstateInvestor.com/Robert-gifts. Hey, look, you’re giving away more than one gift, right?
Robert Syfert (26:10):
I’m going to take a guess and say the gifts are probably some of the real estate stuff that I have, like some of my contracts and ways that I approach business with exact scripting on how to do it, to get started and get going in follow up sequences that I’ve paid thousands of dollars to have copywritten for real estate. So I probably gave all that away, if I guess.
Jay Conner (26:34):
So Robert in this software, it just sounds like it’s exactly what real estate investors use. I mean, me and my team we’ve been using the same CRM now for probably 4 years to keep up. I mean, thank goodness I’ve not looked at a piece of paper with a property lead sheet information on it. And about 4 years, it’s all in the software. But I really liked that it’s integrated, especially when other marketing campaigns come in, that it auto-populates. And it also sounds to me that you’ve learned from experience, and of course I know it as well. The money in this business is in the follow up. And then the follow up it’s like, I make an offer today on a house and they tell me to go fly a kite or whatever. Well, I’ve learned that somebody that tells me to fly a kite wants me to put some wind back in their sail in about 30 or 60 days from now because life and circumstances change, right, Robert?
Robert Syfert (28:03):
Absolutely. Follow up, follow up, follow up. If there’s anything to do with any sale, it’s all about the follow-up. There’s Harvard studies, Google studies, tons of them. They would tell you multiple, multiple times all about the goals and the followup.
Jay Conner (28:19):
That sounds fantastic. Well, Robert, I just really enjoyed learning about the software. I know our viewers and listeners want to check out this software and so parting comments, Robert? Final piece of advice that you would give to our listeners.
Robert Syfert (28:38):
Yeah. The biggest one I’ll come back to is it’s going to be the 6 inches between your ears. And in life, the biggest lesson that I’ve had is facing those and the easiest way to face those is to do the thing immediately that comes to your mind that you’re afraid to do. The more you do that, the better life you’re going to have. And if you get magic, you’ll start every day being grateful and being in a place of gratitude to start your day, which will make your mind more open to possibility.
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